


[DEPRECATED] [DON'T READ]

by Anonymous



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Drug Dealing, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gangs, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sexual Fantasy, Turf wars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-05-18 23:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19344757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There's a rumor going around amongst Shizuo's classmates at Raijin High School, a superstition:Beware the devil of the crossroads, with his red eyes and white skin. He’ll give you what your heart desires but he’ll take your soul in exchange.Prequel for "To Kill Your Darlings"[This fic is DEPRECATED]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Don't read this fic! I'll probably orphan / delete it later.

The streets ran red with blood.

It dripped down from his torn sleeves, soaking into the fabric until it weighed him down. It ran down the side of his face, stinging his eyes. It filled the air with its sharp metallic stench, mixed with the stink of sweat and fear and exhaustion. It roared in his ears, until it filled his head with too much noise, rushed through his veins and heart in pounding, uneven beats.

It formed puddles around the shattered and groaning bodies on the ground. It smeared across the rough pavement. It painted red and black on the stones. It oozed from torn flesh and broken noses, spattered into the air with their every twitch, their every painful jerk of movement.

It was the color of the sky, this late at night, with the rays of the sun stabbing through the clouds and bleeding halos of red into the air. It made the street seem like a piece of hell, filled with the tormented sounds of pain.

In this broken and shattered landscape, Shizuo Heiwajima was the only one standing.

Shizuo felt at his fractured fingers and discovered fingernails crusted with blood. He clenched his fingers into a fist. The pain shot through his arm, then through his spine, and screamed insistently throughout his entire body until he finally relaxed his grip.

The echo of pain still remained. He endured it, just like he always had. The pain made his head clear faster.

The street was wide and deserted, except for the dozen or so delinquents that lay on the ground. Most were unconscious, and the rest were in too much pain to stand up. Eventually, someone would come by and call the police, and they would be collected and sent to the hospital. For now, though, there was nobody around. This was a rough area, and people knew better than to stop and stare when a fight was going on.

_So who's watching me?_

Shizuo turned away from the scene of carnage, searching up the empty street, looking into the windows of dilapidated offices buildings, waiting for the telltale motion of someone ducking out of sight. He saw nothing, not even a shadow of movement. And yet, there was an itch between his shoulders, like someone was holding a dagger an inch away from his skin. He knew he wasn't imagining things, knew that someone must be close by.

He was being watched.

He forced himself to ignore that sensation, just for a moment. Shizuo turned to pick up his bag, dropped in an overgrown ditch on the side of the road, and checked it. Nothing had been stolen, thankfully. Everyone had been too preoccupied with dealing with him. So, whoever was watching didn't seem to be a thief.

Shizuo shrugged the strap over his shoulder, winced at the twinge of pain that ran down his arm as he discovered another gash, running across his shoulder. He had brought fists to a knife fight, and this was what he got for it.

A raven flew overhead and landed on a nearby lamppost, drawn in by the scent of blood. Its glossy black wings shone in the light. The sound of its caw cut through the air, temporarily silencing the groans rising from the ground.

Shizuo followed its movement.

It met his stare with glassy black eyes and cocked its head as if to say, _got anything to show me?_

Fury rose in him, even though he knew it was just a bird. He picked up a stray stone, cracked loose from the pavement. Before he could throw it, the raven fluttered its wings and took off into the reddish-orange sky.

Shizuo watched the bird rise above the rooftops -

\- and there, silhouetted against the eerie sky, was a dark-haired figure with his hands in his black jacket and red eyes.

Their eyes met, and in the next instant, the figure was gone.

After overcoming his initial shock, Shizuo took several steps toward the building. Then, he forced himself to stop, realizing that there would be no way to get up to that roof.

It was difficult to make himself stop. He wanted to dig his fingers into the blue apartment building and bring it down. He wanted to throw himself into a chase that wouldn't stop until he had caught his quarry. But by the time he went up all those flights of stairs, that person would be long gone.

 _I knew it_ , he thought fiercely. He _hadn't_ imagined that gaze on his back, following him around for the past few weeks. He had been right, even though nobody had believed him. _I have a stalker_.

He realized that his fingers were still clutching the stone. With an effort, he made himself drop it. It clattered against the asphalt at his feet. After a moment, he turned to go home. It was getting late, and he did not want to be out after dark.

More ravens flew by, noisy with the sound of their wings fluttering through the air, but Shizuo was too preoccupied with navigating home to notice.

By the time he exited the street, for some reason, he was smiling.


	2. Shinra Kishitani

"I was right," he said to Shinra, the next day, as soon as he walked into the classroom and sat down at his desk. "I saw him, the guy that's been following me. I didn't imagine it."

They were both waiting for classes to start, and the room was filled with the chatter of other students. Shinra was lounging against the window of the classroom, where the bright morning light shone through in large swaths, filling up the room with the crisp, clear light of winter.

Frost still covered the windows, although the worst of the snowy season had already passed. It climbed up the edges, formed icy patterns across the glass, where Shinra had been tracing them idly. He came away from the glass as Shizuo approached, and eyed his hands with sudden curiosity.

"Did he do that to you?" Shinra asked, indicating the splint on Shizuo's fingers, a white strip of fabric binding them together against a flat piece of wood.

Then, showing a startling depth of understanding, Shinra added: "Or did you do it to yourself?"

Shizuo took off the splint and showed him his fingers. The doctor had recommended keeping them on for at least two weeks, but his fingers no longer hurt, and he hated the feeling of having the stiff fabric immobilizing him. A little impatiently, he said: "This proves it - that I have a stalker. And I'm pretty sure he's from this school."

"They look fine," Shinra said, with no sympathy at all, inspecting Shizuo's newly healed fingers. "Did they heal overnight?"

"Yes," Shizuo said because he knew that Shinra wouldn't move on unless his curiosity was satisfied.

"That's amazing," Shinra said, with all the awe of a scientist observing a new chemical reaction.

Shizuo made a noise of frustration and slammed his fist against his desk. " _Listen to me_ ," he growled.

The entire classroom went silent as all conversation died, and a sudden chill permeated the air, freezing all vocal cords and stilling all movement. For a couple of seconds, it was as if the room had turned into a picture. Nobody was looking at Shizuo, but he felt their attention on him anyway.

"Shit," he muttered, breaking the silence with all the grace of a stone smashing through glass. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell."

Shinra put his hands together and bowed in apology. "Sorry," he said, grinning in that pacifying way of his - too formal to be sincere but too sincere to be a mockery. "What were you saying?"

"It was nothing," Shizuo said, more for other people's ears than for Shinra's.

Conversation resumed in the classroom, in fits and starts, as the tension melted away. Shizuo didn't say anything for a long time, afraid of killing the room's atmosphere once again.

He hadn't meant to sound so agitated. It was just that, _finally_ , he was starting to get some answers. Over the past few weeks, somebody had been following him as he left the school and wandered the streets of Ikebukuro on his own, all the way until nightfall. It was just that, whenever he looked over his shoulder, there was no one there, and whenever he tried to call them out, he got no response.

About his stalker, Shizuo knew this much: They were probably a Raijin student, one who didn't participate in any club activities or part-time jobs. Otherwise, that itch between his shoulders wouldn't have started so soon after leaving school. They were good at hiding from sight, good enough that at first, Shizuo had dismissed that feeling of being watched.

The problem was, that certainty had grown stronger and stronger over time, despite all of his other senses telling him otherwise.

He was beginning to think he was going mad, until last night.

After last night, Shizuo now had several more pieces of information: They were male, with dark hair and red eyes. His height would be hard to tell, but Shizuo didn't think he would be particularly tall or particularly short. So, probably, an average height for a high school student. Other traits - athletic, or at least agile enough to keep up with a person on foot while traversing over rooftops. Not particularly law-abiding, because Shizuo could hardly imagine the law allowing someone to trespass on random buildings that easily. And crazy, for stalking someone with a reputation as bad as Shizuo's was.

It was strange to think that Shizuo had a better understanding of his stalker's personality than a clear picture of his face. And yet, there was one physical trait that stood out sharply.

"Shinra," he said abruptly. "Do you know anyone with red eyes?"

Shinra had gone back to staring out the window, but now he turned to Shizuo with a questioning tilt of his head.

There was a pause as Shinra pondered the question. "Red eyes? That's unusual."

"Do you know any or not?" Shizuo was already regretting asking. It sounded like a ridiculous question. He wondered if Shinra even remembered their previous conversation, and would put two and two together.

"Sorry," Shinra shrugged. "I don't think anyone here has red eyes. Do you mean red-eye as in a bloodshot eye? It's possible if the blood vessels in your eyes hemorrhage, the blood could fill up your -"

"No," Shizuo said flatly. "I didn't mean that."

Thankfully, Shinra cut off before he could go any further. A few classmates who had overheard their conversation now edged further away from them, looking disturbed.

Shizuo looked down at his desk, frowning in thought. He had been sure of what he had seen - the memory was still as clear to him as if he had taken a picture of that moment. But what Shinra said had been right. He had never seen anyone at school that looked like that, and if he had, he surely would have remembered red eyes. It was a complete mystery.

_I'll figure out who you are_ , he thought at the image in his head. _Just you wait_.


	3. The Desk

The next day, there was something written on his desk in a neat, elegant hand.

Shizuo stared at the marks, carved into the wood with the nib of a pen, so faint that he could only see it from where he was sitting down. He reached out and traced the words.

 _I'm not a stalker,_ it read. _I just love watching you fight._

He barely paid attention to classes that day. The teacher droned on and on at the front of the classroom, not even caring that half the students were asleep at their desks. Shizuo tried to look around without staring, but surely no one in his class had red eyes, not even the sleeping students.

That meant that his conversation yesterday had been overheard. That meant his maybe-red-eyed stalker was watching him, indirectly, even when he was at school.

Shizuo returned his attention to his desk, to the message written there.

Strangely, his heart was hammering in his chest. He knew now, for certain, that he had been right about his stalker being a student. He also knew, with startling clarity, that they must be in the same building, maybe only a couple of rooms away from each other.

By the end of the day, he had added a line underneath, written just as imperceptibly, carved easily into the soft wood with a pen.

_Don't you have other things to do in life, besides watching me suffer?_

He was tempted to sit there until nightfall, to wait for some red-eyed boy to show up in the classroom, but he knew it wouldn't work. Shizuo went straight home that day, instead of wandering the streets like he usually did. For some reason, nothing could irritate him, not his parents' fussing over his removal of the splint, not even Kasuka's dead-eyed silence.

The next day, a new line had appeared.

_I think you have it wrong. The ones who suffer are the opponents you beat up. I enjoy watching their suffering, not yours._

_That's messed up_ , he wrote, not even pausing to think before writing it down. After lunch, to his surprise, another line had appeared.

_Why? Don't you enjoy it when the gangs come looking for you? Doesn't it make you feel special?_

Shizuo could almost imagine someone saying the line, with a teasing smile, with absolutely no regard for Shizuo's famous temper. He had no idea why he felt this way, but he was fairly certain that the writer had a voice that would linger over vowels and drip with fake sincerity.

He realized that the boy had stolen into this classroom, had sat in his chair, all without drawing attention or inciting comment from the people around him. A shiver went through him, both hot and cold at once.

The words on the desk seemed to whisper at him, secretive and insidious, like a suggestion, like temptation.

 _No._ He wrote, almost gouging the wood before he remembered to be careful. _I hate it. I wish they would leave me alone._

He didn't get a reply until the next day, and this time there were two lines written instead of one.

_What if I told you there was a way to make them leave you alone forever?_

Shizuo froze before reading the next line, filled with sudden, unexpected hope.

 _Tomorrow afternoon_ , _meet me in the warehouse behind the school._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short chapters D: They will get longer, I promise!


	4. Fifty

The land behind Raijin High School was largely undeveloped, with dirt paths instead of poured cement. Tall weeds poked up through melted patches of snow, a testament to the total lack of the school gardener's attention in this area. A tall chained fence was set up to surround the empty lot, melting into the woods, rusted and broken through. Several sections leaned over heavily, trampled by years of students climbing over it.

The warehouse itself was large, gleaming aluminum-silver, the metal rooftops still dusted by a light layer of snow. It stood nearly two stories high, but seemed empty and hollow, like the abandoned shell of some massive animal. Piles of gym equipment had been shoved up against its sides, from mats to goalposts to large baskets of deflated soccer balls. The land around it was packed, bare earth, leading to a small asphalt parking lot that narrowed into a one-lane road, which then snaked around behind the fence into the distance.

Even before Shizuo had gone halfway down the path leading to the warehouse, he realized that he would not be alone, as he had expected.

After the first layer of trees rose up to hide the sight of the school behind him, Shizuo heard the low buzz of a crowd of voices rising up into the air, low and tense and sounding like a kicked beehive. When he had gone a bit further down the road, he began to see people through the trees.

They were kids from his school, with the sleeves of their uniforms rolled up and their coats undone. Some weren't even wearing their coats at all, even in this cold weather.

He stopped to count and gave up before he had reached twenty. There seemed to be twice that, maybe more. He recognized a few faces as some who had attacked him before. They were delinquents, all students that had skipped classes to come here. But _why?_ And for _what_?

The grass had long since been trampled to dust beneath their feet. Cigarette butts and broken bottles littered the ground. The delinquents clustered together in groups of four to twelve, milling about. The air trembled with the nervous energy that was always there when a fight was about to break out.

Shizuo felt his heart rate pick up, felt adrenaline shooting into his system. He tried to keep his breathing even, tried to keep it under control. He knew the logical thing to do would be to turn around and leave, right now, right this instant. But he had already come this far, and something told him that if he left, he would regret it later.

As he stepped out of the treeline and came into view, all eyes turned to stare at him. Just at the sight of him, everyone went on high alert, tense and on the brink of violence. Shizuo fought to remain calm. He didn't want to be the one to start this. That would be all he needed, with nearly all eyes on him, facing a crowd of people all itching for a fight.

" _You,_ " the word was more of a snarl, coming from a tall boy with hunched shoulders. There was a small scar on his upper lip, barely healed over. He leaned over and grabbed a bat from someone else's hands, then started toward Shizuo immediately, brimming with hostile intent. " _Fuck!_ What are you doing here, Heiwajima?"

Shizuo felt as if the boy's face was familiar, but no name came to mind. He felt his adrenaline spike alongside his anger.

The tall boy stalked toward him, followed by his group of friends.

"I get it now," the boy spat as he kept coming closer, his dark eyes fixed on Shizuo. " _You're_ the real threat. _You're_ his plan."

Throughout all this, mutters of excitement were rising in volume, finally boiling over into shouts and yells.

With a violent shove, the boy pushed aside someone who was in his way. They retaliated immediately with a warlike cry and a swing of their arm. The rest of his friends had to turn away, breaking into fights with the groups around them. The air seemed to shatter from the sudden explosion of whoops and hollering coming from the crowd as they finally started what they had come here for. The violence spread like wildfire.

Shizuo stared at the chaos that erupted around him in utter amazement.

The entire field had exploded with movement and sound - tackling and shouts and wrestling on the ground and hollers and fighting and screams.

A broken glass bottle sailed overhead, refracting the sunlight, making a beautiful arc before smashing into the ground and splintering into pieces. People were smashing fists into faces, grabbing and throwing bodies around, screaming their heads off. It was madness.

_What the fuck are they doing?_

A sudden blow to his head made him stagger. A short boy with a baseball bat in his hands backed away, yelling: "Get out of here! This place is gonna be _ours_. It won't _ever_ belong to you!"

Shizuo felt the side of his face sting, felt blood trickling down his skin.

His temper blew out like a fuse.

.

When it was over, the shouts and war cries turned into soft, broken whimpers of pain. Shizuo stood alone in the midst of the bloody field, which had transformed into absolute carnage. Some of the delinquents were already dragging themselves away, seeing through a mask of blood, being supported by their friends. Most of the fighting had focused on him, once the delinquents had realized what a threat he had been.

It was a familiar scene, one Shizuo had seen time and time again. As the adrenaline faded away, the guilt and horror began to set in. He wondered if he was stuck in an endless loop, doomed to repeat his mistakes forever, doomed to see this scene for the rest of his life.

Well, one thing had changed. Shizuo stared at his hands, with its unbroken fingers. Other than a few scrapes, he had somehow gotten out of this nearly unscathed.

After that first, surprising blow to the head, he had simply picked up a nearby soccer goal post from a pile of abandoned gym equipment. His body had done the rest, acting outside of his control, swinging the metal bar and sending bodies flying.

It had been simple cleanup. No one had even gotten near him. Soon, nobody would ever be able to go near him.

He stood for a long time in the middle of that field, wondering what the repercussions of this fight would be. He had never lost his temper at such a large scale before. He must have broken thirty limbs, must have accumulated a lifetime worth of bad karma. There would be no hope of ever settling into a peaceful life, after this.

Anger bloomed inside him. He had trusted the person who had written to him, had trusted those neatly carved letters and teasing words. He had believed, just one moment, that if he came to the warehouse, he could really be free from all the gang violence.

He had been tricked.

He should have expected this. His stalker enjoyed seeing others suffer, enjoyed watching large-scale fights where Shizuo lost his temper and wrought destruction. He had played Shizuo like a fool, had led him right into a crowd of every single delinquent in the school. This was all a game to him, an entertaining show.

The warehouse seemed to beckon to him with its empty windows and its closed metal doors. Without knowing how Shizuo suddenly realized that the red-eyed boy must be inside. Even if he had lied about giving Shizuo a way to be free of the gangs, he still must have intended to meet Shizuo here. He moved without thinking, walking over to the entrance.

He pushed open the warehouse doors. _Whoever you are_ , he thought grimly. _You better have a damn good explanation for this, or you're going to have hell to pay._


	5. Izaya Orihara

The doors opened with ease, letting in the bright afternoon sunlight.

The interior of the warehouse was surprisingly tall, making it seem open and airy. High steel beams crossed above his head. The floor was all bare, cracked concrete with weeds growing through it, except for one end which was a raised wooden platform. Sitting on the edge of that platform, one leg drawn up in front of him while the other dangled carelessly, was a dark-haired boy with maroon eyes and a scimitar grin.

Shizuo let the doors fall shut behind him.

"Congratulations on making it here," the boy said. His voice reminded Shizuo of smoke and shadows, the threat of a blade somewhere in the dark. He seemed to be around Shizuo's age, but he also seemed to fit in perfectly with the painted gang signs and splatters of blood or rust on the wall behind him. "I thought you might be the one to walk through those doors. My name is Izaya Orihara. It's nice to finally meet you."

At this, Shizuo strode forward. His footsteps echoed in the open space, and the boy watched him approach with no fear or concern or trepidation in his eyes. He wanted to ask _who are you?_ But that question had already been answered, so he edited it out.

When they were face to face, Shizuo grabbed the boy's collar, and demanded: "Were you the one who sent all those people outside? What the _hell_ was that?"

He cut short when he realized that the boy had the tip of a switchblade pressed against his throat. Up close, he realized that Izaya's irises were actually a dark red. His eyes seemed nearly black in the dim light. His features were surprisingly delicate, almost elegant in a way that had Shizuo's eyes catching on the rise of his cheekbones and the line of his jaw. Shizuo loosened his grip a little. It felt as if just touching that skin would leave bruises.

Distantly, he knew he should be angry right now, should be furious at the threat of the blade, at being tricked. But he kept getting distracted by the color of Izaya's eyes, and the relief that he had been right about him existing after all.

"One thing at a time," Izaya said, smiling up at him. "Those people outside came of their own free will. They won't come after you for revenge, and they won't tell a soul about where their injuries came from."

"How do you know that?" Shizuo demanded.

"They promised," Izaya said lightly, and suddenly there was a cruel edge to his smile. "And nobody breaks their promises to _me_."

Shizuo shivered and let go. The blade disappeared in Izaya's sleeve with a quiet _click._

"As for your second question," Izaya continued, " _That_ was a turf war, only with the rules modified a bit. First, multiple gangs were involved, all at once. Second, the victor would remain in possession of this area, unchallenged, for the rest of high school. That is, unless they abandon the warehouse, and don't visit it for a week. After that, it's free game."

Shizuo had assumed something similar, but he still wasn't satisfied with that explanation. " _Why?_ What's so special about this place?"

Izaya gestured toward the walls of the warehouse, his hands somehow encompassing the entire building in his palms. "It's an abandoned building, you see. The police don't care about it because it technically belongs to the school. The school doesn't want to deal with it because it's too old and there are too many gang members here."

"Over the years, there have been more and more fights amongst rival gangs for the rights to this warehouse. It was beginning to attract too much attention. It makes much more sense to have a free-for-all with everyone, and then everyone agrees that the winner gets left alone to do whatever they want with this place. Wouldn't you agree?"

Shizuo honestly didn't care either way, but he couldn't help but stare at Izaya, at the dark of his hair falling over his delicate features, at the knowing gleam in his eyes.

"Don't tell me," Shizuo said. "You planned all of this."

He didn't need an answer. It was obvious in the way Izaya reacted as if he had been given a compliment instead of accused of starting a war.

Everything that had happened outside suddenly took on a new meaning. Shizuo drew in a deep breath, almost blown away by the magnitude of it all. The shattered limbs, all those cries of pain, that violence - it hadn't been senseless after all. It had been the price he had needed to pay, the trial he had needed to overcome.

Shizuo looked around, trying to mask his sudden sense of elation. This place, with its high ceilings and metal walls, its cracked floor, and its hollow interior, now belonged to him. He wouldn't have to wander the streets looking for a place where he wouldn't be bothered. He was going to be free of the senseless violence, the constant fighting. He was finally going to be left alone.

A thought made him turn back to Izaya. "Is this why you've been stalking me? So you could figure out how to use me?"

Izaya didn't even hesitate. He grinned at Shizuo as if mocking him for his self-important delusion. "What are you talking about? I just saw you fighting some delinquents once and thought you should be invited to their grand event."

Shizuo's blood chilled at the ease with which Izaya delivered the lie. He stared at Izaya's expression, looking for the tiniest hint of guilt or discomfort. He found none.

"I'd say you got pretty lucky, wouldn't you?" Izaya continued, unruffled by Shizuo's sudden glare. "If I hadn't happened across the scene of your crime, you never would have -"

Shizuo caught him off guard, pushing him flat on his back onto the wooden platform and pinning him down with one hand.

"You don't know me," Shizuo said, calm with certainty. A violent thrill ran through him at how easily he could hold Izaya down, like electricity running down his arm and making his fingers tingle and his palms burn, leaving behind a ringing, numb feeling in its wake. "And I don't know you. So I'll warn you just this once - _don't lie to me_."

He watched Izaya's face for fear, waited for it, but it never came.

After he felt that he had gotten his point across, Shizuo pulled back his arm. As Izaya sat up slowly, Shizuo asked: "What's in it for you? I still don't understand why you did this."

Izaya tilted his head slightly. For an instant, Shizuo wondered if he had made a wrong move, or made a mistake. There was a strange look in Izaya's eyes, eerie and calculating, as if he was planning some sort of revenge. At last, Izaya smiled.

"Don't worry," he said. "You'll find out in time."


	6. Limbo

The truth was, Izaya Orihara did it because it had been _easy_.

All it had taken was one simple push, and a little careful setup, and the entire thing had fallen into place like a row of dominoes. It had been _beautiful._ It was like creating a piece of art out of thin air with nothing more than a few spray-painted signs and a few notes passed to the right people. It was like composing a symphony on his first try. It was like playing chess with fifty other pawns while he held the queen. It was like being a god.

At first glance, the warehouse behind the school had been nothing special. Once, it had been used as a gym, but then new funding had come in and a new gym had been built. The warehouse was a little too far away, and was bordered by nothing but cracked concrete roads and trees. It was the perfect breeding ground for delinquent activity.

It was the perfect in-between place - no adults to monitor you, no rules or guidelines to restrict you. It kept out the rain, the wind, and the cold. It belonged to no one, and so it could be a place that even a child could own. For kids that had nothing, not even the desire to go home, that was a prize worth shedding blood over.

But Izaya had no desire to shed blood, and no desire to involve himself directly with something so tedious. The vast tide of humanity was best appreciated from a high altitude. Touching that current and getting swept along into the normal everyday activities and conversations had never appealed to him.

So, for the first few months, Izaya just watched it. He watched the silly fights over it, the turf wars fought by desperate and lonely children. He watched group after group trying to hold on to that warehouse, only to be driven out a few weeks later.

He learned the names of the gang leaders, their numbers, their habits. He learned about the things they did in that warehouse, the games and the betting, the dares and the orgies, the get-rich-quick schemes and the constant struggle for power. He learned about their silly arguments, their betrayals, their scheming, their constant fear of being driven out of the only place they could call their own.

He saw it and thought: _I could play this game and win without even trying._

But he didn't, at first. Instead, during the school day, he wandered around the edges of conversations and never joined any circles of groups, just watched it all from his own corner of space. When school ended, he stayed in the library for as long as he could, sometimes reading, sometimes not. And after the library closed, when there was nowhere else for him to go, he wandered the city streets until nightfall.

That was how he had discovered Shizuo Heiwajima.

.

Watching him, surrounded by broken bodies under a red-orange sky, Izaya was suddenly struck by a fit of inspiration, like a bolt of lightning.

 _I can make this work, if I wanted to,_ he thought. _I can make this happen._

Izaya supposed that it had been a test of sorts - a test of his own capabilities. A test to see if he knew the humans around him as well as he thought he did. A test to see if he would enjoy meddling with human lives instead of just observing everyone from a distance. A test to see if he could put all of his accumulated observations and theories to actual use, to see if he could gain something of real value, out in the real world instead of inside his head.

And the answer had been, across the board, a resounding _yes_.

Well, actually, Izaya hadn't expected it to work out _that_ well. To be honest, up until the very last moment, Izaya hadn't even been sure that Shizuo Heiwajima would come. That had been the only part of the whole plan that Izaya couldn't predict. Seeing that fight happen, seeing everything come together so perfectly, had easily been the best moment of Izaya's life up till now.

Izaya was still riding on that ridiculous high a week later, almost giddy with the realization that everything had worked out exactly how he wanted it - _everything_. His limbs felt so light that he thought he could fly. He couldn't stop smiling to himself, which freaked out all of his classmates. His head was in the clouds. For once, he barely paid attention to any of the teacher's droning lectures or his classmates' chattering gossip. He still remembered the jolt of electricity that ran through him when Shizuo had casually pushed him down. He could still taste the ozone in the roof of his mouth, from that crackling bolt of sensation.

The result of all of his machinations was a resounding victory, and the spoils of said victory were these: the warehouse behind the school, and Shizuo Heiwajima.

The warehouse was indisputably his. Shizuo Heiwajima was still a mystery. But Izaya was confident he could use one to capture the other.

After all, the two were inextricably linked. Shizuo's mere presence would be enough to deter most people from trying to come back and reclaim the warehouse; and the warehouse would be able to provide something that Shizuo wanted desperately - a place to be left alone.

.

And so, a legend was born in the things the students gossiped about in the hallways, amongst the delinquents who seethed with impotent rage at having their prize stolen away from them by a stranger. The legend's name was Shizuo Heiwajima, who had single-handedly defeated fifty delinquents in the field behind the school, who had shown up out of the blue like a descending god and had claimed the warehouse as his own.

In other circles, in places where money and cards and drugs traded hands in shadowed, smoky rooms, amongst people who wore scars and tattoos openly on their faces and skin, a different rumor spread.

That rumor's name was Izaya Orihara, who had come out of nowhere, with no connections, no shady background, and no prior record of lawbreaking.

Izaya Orihara, who had some strange kind of hold over every single gang leader in the school, and had managed to make them all agree to cede the rights of the warehouse to whoever won their free-for-all battle royale.

Izaya Orihara, who had somehow convinced Shizuo Heiwajima to fight on his behalf, and had taken over the warehouse, and had tricked them all.


End file.
